Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology

Salamander Snapchats

With the school year starting up again, it means that the undergraduate crew that I work with in the laboratory at Ohio State are back on campus. They are great to work with. Really great. One of my favorite things about them, aside from their work ethic and trustworthiness, is that they have a fantastic collective sense of humor. Because levity is a big part of my own personal work environment, I encourage joking around extensively while doing scientific work.

One of our salamander caretakers, Paul, is particularly fond of updating me regularly about how the captive salamanders are doing. However, instead of coming to my office or sending me an email, Paul chooses to accomplish this through funny snapchats. If you don’t know what Snapchat is, it is a messaging app for phones that allows the sender to create picture messages that are only viewable for a few seconds.

I thought I’d share some of Paul’s work (with his permission). These messages are irreverent and silly and very funny to me. I hope you think so too.